The Wicked King
core novel 2019 The Folk of the Air / The Modern Faerie Tales
Record
| First published | 2019 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.27 (1,129,264 ratings, collected 2026-08-20) |
| Page count | 336 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780316310352 |
Synopsis
The Wicked King picks up after the events of The Cruel Prince, with Jude having secretly bound Cardan, now the newly crowned High King of Faerie, to her will, making herself the true power behind his throne while keeping her young brother Oak safe as heir. Publicly she must maintain the fiction of Cardan's authority while privately controlling his actions, all while he continues to needle and undermine her even as he remains drawn to her. As Jude works to consolidate her hidden influence over the Faerie court, she becomes aware of a betrayal brewing among those close to her, one that threatens everything she has built. She must root out the traitor and navigate her fraught, unresolved feelings for Cardan while keeping her precarious control over Elfhame's throne intact as a mortal surrounded by enemies who would see her fall.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Folk of the Air / The Modern Faerie Tales
- Series: The Folk of the Air core; position 2 of 3 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Holly Black
Notes
- From the series record (The Folk of the Air): The original trilogy set in the High Court of Elfhame, following the mortal-born Jude Duarte's rise to power.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series The Folk of the Air: position 2 of 3: previous The Cruel Prince (2018) · next The Queen of Nothing (2020)
Sources
- Holly Black - Wikipedia
- Holly Black's own complete bibliography page
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wicked_King
- https://blackholly.com/books/the-wicked-king/
← The Folk of the Air / The Modern Faerie Tales dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.